


Oneiromancy

by kerithwyn



Category: DCU (Comics), Legion of Super-Heroes (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Legion 2019, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-26 04:11:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20736032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerithwyn/pseuds/kerithwyn
Summary: Dream Girl remembers everything.





	Oneiromancy

**Author's Note:**

> What are we calling this reboot, anyway? Bendis Legion, Fourboot, Rebirth Legion, Millennium Legion.... I’ll amend tags when there’s a fandom consensus.
> 
> Based on speculation and images from preview pics and _Superman_ 14 and 15. Takes place during _Superman_ 15\. All details almost certain to be Jossed with the next Legion appearance.
> 
> Thanks to Tangerine for being there when the idea struck and for encouragement, always. ♥

Dream Girl remembers everything.

The precognitives of Naltor see possible futures. Most glimpse only a moment before an event, some days or even weeks: enough to catch a falling cup before it shatters or choose another transport to avoid a crowded spacelane. The visions of the most gifted discern probable futures, leading them to take on prominent positions in concerns from planetary governance to galactic investment banking to the ruling High Seer.

Nura Nal, always the most prescient among her people, sees the past.

Not just the memories of her life here and now, the events she’s seen or experienced. She can recall multiple pasts, as clear as any prophetic vision. Multiple lives lived. She knows that possible pasts are no different than possible futures. Multiple timelines, multiple realities, are a scientific fact.

Nura believes in science. She also believes in magic. Her sister Mysa, born without the Naltorian gift, found her own power. The two aren’t as different as some would like to believe. Different rules, but inviolable rules nonetheless.

The Legion accepts her visions as valid forewarnings, even if they don’t understand how. If Saturn Girl happens to catch a glimpse of the anachronic images in Nura’s mind, she won’t take those memories for fact. And Imra is good about respecting telepathic boundaries. Most of the time.

Of all the Legionnaires, Nura is best suited for this recall. Her training shields her from being overwhelmed, her hard-won discipline puts them in perspective. Every Naltorian knows that possible futures don’t mean absolute certainty, and even probable futures can be altered. So she can take the memories (so many!) in stride, and examine them for truth.

She has been a scientist, a vamp, a leader, a martial artist, a flake, a lover. A Legionnaire.

She remembers—how odd!—a solid body, a fleshy body, instead of malleable sand. Here, now, she is marked as closer to the Dreaming than ever before. But in all her recollections she is platinum-haired, clad in silver. As strange as that is, she still recognizes herself.

She remembers, wincing, too often using that pampered and well-toned body to tease and manipulate her teammates. It had been an effective weapon, used inappropriately against her teammates.

She remembers, with pride, using that pampered and well-toned body to put down villains who underestimated her, thinking her powers of the mind meant her body was less capable in a fight.

She remembers three past lives most clearly, and at least two others more dimly.

She remembers leading the Legion through a great and terrible darkness. She remembers visions dropping her into unconsciousness. She remembers her own death and resurrection. More faintly she remembers being a very adult High Seer and at the same time she remembers being (retroactively) part of a very young team. Time had been dangerously fluid in those versions.

She remembers being in love.

In most timelines it was Thom Kallor, Star Boy. He killed a man for her once. Ever faithful, ever loyal Thom. Despite what some (previous, alternate) teammates thought, she did truly love him for his determination and earnestness.

She loved Querl Dox more than once, but that affection was consummated in only one lifetime. She understands why: Brainy is...difficult...in any incarnation. But she’s glad to see him smiling here, now.

There’s residual fondness for them both, but no compulsion to recreate any past romance. What will be, will be. And yet she finds herself secretly rooting for Jo and Tinya, Vi and Ayla. They’ll find each other or they won’t, and Nura makes a solemn vow to herself not to interfere.

She might even keep it.

Here in the Unity Day of the past, this timeline’s past, all is joy as they cheer the formation of the United Planets. They invite Superboy to join the Legion, to be the Legionnaire he was always meant to be. Nura _feels_ the universe snap into place, anchoring this reality in time. The future—

Nura smiles to herself. The future will be and she’ll see its potential variations: the ones she’ll work to bring about, the ones she’ll fight to avert. Like she always has. Like she always will.

“Long Live the Legion,” she whispers, and her words ring with prophecy. Even if this isn’t their final incarnation, the Legion will endure.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve posted this before, but the occasion deserves a brief repeat. (See [ the Dannell Lites Archive profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Dannell_Lites_Archive/profile) for the explicated version.)
> 
> In June of 1999, I’d been happily reading fic as a lurker when Dannell Lites posted her first Legion fic, [ Mon-El](https://archiveofourown.org/works/564591). It set my head on fire. It set my _heart_ on fire. And I started writing Legion fic too: [ Anamnesis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/178299) was my first, swiftly followed by several others.
> 
> I’d been thinking a lot this year about it being the 20th anniversary (yike) of my first fic, but I’ve been struggling with a three-year writing block. Still, when the new Legion was announced, it seemed appropriate to commemorate the occasion by going back to my first published fandom.
> 
> I am amused that I managed to find a title as pretentious as that first fic. :D And that fic also included dreaming, so I’ve come full circle.
> 
> And just for fun, down the rabbit hole: of _course_ tvtropes has a page about [ remembering alternate timelines](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RippleEffectProofMemory).


End file.
